I was a judge in a junior-high school student history fair recently. For those like I am who came from the era when history fairs usually had castles made out of sugar cubes and balsa wood models of Jamestown and the like, today they’re a lot more high tech- students use video equipment to make documentaries. One was on the Holocaust.
Okay, the documentary was dreadful and clearly helped content-wise by a teacher. There were lots of stock footage and photographs done Ken Burns pan-over style while the narrator read in a monotone the statistics and the like, and this was followed by a LONG and copyright-infringing excerpt from Schindler’s List that accounted for about half the 10 minute length. One of the scenes is of Goeth saying “I pardon you” to the boy who cleaned his bathtub, then blowing his head off a moment later. Not exactly a funny scene, I agree.
The documentary ends with some stats and lots and lots of accelerating stock photos and footage rolling while the Doors’ The End played for no apparent reason other than “Holocaust was dark and creepy… The End is dark and creepy… bet they’d work great together!” logic. It didn’t. Then after the song and photo montage end, a black screen with a bloody Halloween font that says “The Holocaust… don’t let it happen again”, followed by a three second scene of Goeth shooting the Polish boy again. Then another black with Halloween bloody text letters pops up and reads “The End” then, a question mark appeared so it read The End**?** in that same Halloween bloody font, followed by (JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT THE BLOODY THING WAS FINISHED) the credits. I’m changing the names, but they were if anything worse than these, and still in the bloody red font:
THE HOLOCAUST
a film by Bucky Ray Finster, Susie Lee Moss, Caitlin McGillivray and BoBo Downs
AND THEN
the Polish boy gets it again. (Remember, you don’t actually see him shot in the movie, you just see the maid walking by his headless body, and this was the scene that was shown again and again and again in this film.)
Thank God I was watching this alone (it was a copy of the DVD that I watched from home while judging) or I’d have been lumped with David Irving and Mel Gibson for laughing hysterically at the Holocaust. You’d probably have to see it to understand why I thought it was hysterical, but few things are funnier than failed ultra-earnestness and this went over the limit, especially with the poor little once-twice-thrice killed Polish boy that apparently the students assembling this thought was either the most compelling or at least coolest shot (no pun intended) to speak of the Holocaust.
And thank God they gave their names at the end. I didn’t know any of the students (though one had the same surname as my grandmother’s maiden name so I could perhaps claim prejudice), but as that was a very clear violation of the rules (nothing that identified students or even the school was permissible) it was an automatic disqualification. That way I didn’t have to give my reasons for it being an F, though I think the 5 minutes or so of Schindler’s List excerpts would have been enough.
Anyway, that’s my “Holocaust related stuff that made me laugh hysterically moment” for the year. I love false depth.